Without limiting the scope of the invention, its background is described in connection with the porous biopolymer hydrogels and methods of preparing the same.
WIPO Patent Publication No. WO 2009/108760 A8 (Zawko and Schmidt, 2009) discloses a hydrogel and a method of making a porous hydrogel by preparing an aqueous mixture of an uncrosslinked polymer and a crystallizable molecule; casting the mixture into a vessel; allowing the cast mixture to dry to form an amorphous hydrogel film; seeding the cast mixture with a seed crystal of the crystallizable molecule; growing the crystallizable molecule into a crystal structure within the uncrosslinked polymer; crosslinking the polymer around the crystal structure under conditions in which the crystal structure within the crosslinked polymer is maintained; and dissolving the crystals within the crosslinked polymer to form the porous hydrogel.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 20100209509 (Kao et al., 2010) discloses hydrogels wherein a polymer matrix is modified to contain a bifunctional poly(alkylene glycol) molecule covalently bonded to the polymer matrix. The hydrogels can be cross-linked using, for example, glutaraldehyde. The hydrogels may also be crosslinked via an interpenetrating network of a photopolymerizable acrylates. The hydrogels may also be modified to have pharmacologically-active agents covalently bonded to the poly(alkylene glycol) molecules or entrained within the hydrogel. Living cells may also be entrained within the hydrogels.